Bricklink/BrickOwl - Discussion, questions, & answers

[beatpoppa]

[waddamon]

I am guessing here, but lego may use this purchase to amplify the secondary market for their sets as expensive collectibles.  This will then justify and allow them to keep pricing their new sets at stupid prices.  They already make too many, which is what bankrupted them almost, the first time.  So in the best conflict of interest possible, they juice the secondary market to boost the primary market.  Interestingly without the appreciating secondary market they are nothing but overpriced plastic toys destined for oblivion.  Big business plays the long game.

[Val-E]

3 hours ago, Deadfraggle said:

What’s to stop LEGO from just instituting a SAH ban for everyone who sells on Bricklink? They will presumably have all the seller data after the Bricklink acquisition?

That would be biting the hand that feeds them, or whatever the opposite of that is. Now they are going to double dip on every set as they will get money from the original purchase plus comms every time the set or the parts are resold plus they have all the customer data.

If they had wanted to eliminate resellers entirely, they could and would have done so by now. What I think is they are now going to draw up the rules of engagement and enforce stricter criteria e.g. weeding out undesirable sellers, establishing maximum selling prices, eliminating custom items that do not fit in with TLG philosophy and seeing which sets or parts they should remake due to demand.

[Al Legorical]

13 hours ago, DadsAFOL said:

2% - so Mr Lowenstein got a cool $50k

I thought it was 10% at least that was Russell’s answer to my direct question

[legorunner]

7 hours ago, Val-E said:

That would be biting the hand that feeds them, or whatever the opposite of that is. Now they are going to double dip on every set as they will get money from the original purchase plus comms every time the set or the parts are resold plus they have all the customer data.

If they had wanted to eliminate resellers entirely, they could and would have done so by now. What I think is they are now going to draw up the rules of engagement and enforce stricter criteria e.g. weeding out undesirable sellers, establishing maximum selling prices, eliminating custom items that do not fit in with TLG philosophy and seeing which sets or parts they should remake due to demand.

Assuming LEGO has a good long term plan that does not involve significant reductions in production (thus eliminating the need for resellers to help absorb excess inventory) I agree with you. Push out sellers with negative feedback beyond a certain threshold (which ups the anti for good quality parts and good customer service), and then maybe push out some of the really small stores or cap the number of stores that can be opened at any time. 

I'm cautiously optimistic that this will lead to a better user experience for buyers and mostly business as usual for most sellers with just a tightening of expectations, just as long as they don't have the LEGO Shop at Home crew working on the website. I certainly understand where the doom and gloom is coming from, and I could be wrong and this could be phase 1 in the 2020 LEGO aftermarket purge, but  I do believe that LEGO must know they must at least tolerate resellers if they want to survive. Either way, next year will be interesting...

[Phil B]

Check your Sales Tax settings in BL ... I just received an order from my home state and discovered no tax was charged on the order. Went into my store settings and all my tax settings had been removed. Have re-added them but have to pay the sales tax on this one order out of my proceeds I'm afraid .... not sure what happened here but I am sure I had it all properly set up before.

[4cs]

For those of you selling on both BL and BO, and using BrickSync:

I'm getting numerous errors trying to sync my  inventory due to no color code for "Coral". Is there a way to solve this?

[Phil B]

For those of you selling on both BL and BO, and using BrickSync:
I'm getting numerous errors trying to sync my  inventory due to no color code for "Coral". Is there a way to solve this?

Yes ... remove all the Coral parts from your inventory



Seriously though, the code is now open source, so theoretically it should be possible to add the color to BrickSync. Haven’t tried it yet ...

[torontolego]

On 4/3/2014 at 8:39 PM, justafrog said:

1. If possible, could we get a "Bricklink" section under Buying & Selling like we have eBay and Amazon and such now? I know us parts sellers are a minority here, but doesn't hurt to ask.    And whole sets can be sold on BL, too, so it's not quite off-topic even for that.

 

2. Other Bricklinkers: I will be wanting to globally raise my prices as time goes on and my inventory improves and increases. Looking at my inventory page, it looks to me like the last option under "Update My Inventory" is what I want. It reads:

     Increase    Decrease    my cost by % and round results to     2    3    decimals.

 

I know I can just try it out, but I'd rather ask first before pressing any shiny, flashing, scary-looking buttons...

 

Thanks!

I used to use the sales %instead. You can enter a negative number effectively raising prices.  You can limit it to a category (sets, parts, figs) or make more granular selections (figs but not star wars, or parts but not medium blue). 

 

You can test a price increase, and then set the same %back to 0 if orders slow down too much.

If you like where your pricing is at there's an option to make your sale prices into your base prices and then start again. 

[NIevo]

Anyone else seem to be getting a rash of orders lately where they are pulling the ToyCentric "please no invoices or receipts" line?  I've gotten at least 6 in the last couple weeks.

 

[LegoMan1212]

31 minutes ago, NIevo said:

Anyone else seem to be getting a rash of orders lately where they are pulling the ToyCentric "please no invoices or receipts" line?  I've gotten at least 6 in the last couple weeks.

 

All the time.  Business is Business, don't bother me. 

[Al Legorical]

33 minutes ago, NIevo said:

Anyone else seem to be getting a rash of orders lately where they are pulling the ToyCentric "please no invoices or receipts" line?  I've gotten at least 6 in the last couple weeks.

 

Ive had some, I think it’s usually orders being sent to a freight forwarding company, often in Portland or Baltimore. As long as you don’t falsify customs declaration (which you won’t because it’s staying within the border). No problem for you. So far not had a problem with any of these orders.

I no longer put any paperwork with orders, it’s just more landfill and unnecessary IMO

[NIevo]

Bricklink seems to be completely jacked for me right now, please tell me I'm not the only one.  Won't let me add anything to inventory nor will it allow me to post in help sections.  Also when I went and clicked on one of my orders to mark as paid, it changed 2 of my NPB orders to paid as well thus making me have to start all over with the NPB process on those orders!

[minicoopers11]

Just paid my first fees to The Lego Company.

[NIevo]

8 minutes ago, minicoopers11 said:

Just paid my first fees to The Lego Company.

Can't even do that, now all I'm getting are 504 Gateway Time-Outs.

Looks like Bricklink is going to be ran just like LSAH around the holidays.

 

Edited January 4, 2020 by NIevo

[t_mafia]

It's a huge bummer to see that my BrickLink fee payment is going to "The Lego Company"

[Belac]

4 hours ago, t_mafia said:

It's a huge bummer to see that my BrickLink fee payment is going to "The Lego Company"

 Why? Someone was getting my fees. I don't mind if it's LEGO. As long as they stay cool with the situation.

[MusiKyle]

Question on me providing feedback to a seasoned BrickLink seller with 27,245 feedback.

Ordered parts (~$25) on 12/16, coming from Pennsylvania to Iowa.  Seller page did indicate 5-10 days before shipping (I'm guessing due to holiday).  Order did take a while (no tracking provided) but eventually arrived 12/29.  Opened the box, correct packing slip, wrong parts (bunch of technic parts that I would estimate to be roughly same value as the order I placed, maybe a bit less).  Notified seller, they replied within 12 hours (responsive) and said keep parts and will send the correct ones out.  At the same time I ordered a duplicate order from someone else.  The order from someone else has already arrived, very quickly.  I still have not received the replacement order from the seasoned seller but it looks like it should arrive tomorrow (they did provide tracking this time).

Is it wrong to leave neutral feedback?  Rationale would be long initial shipping, mixed up order, and long secondary shipping.  Part of me feels like keeping the mixed up parts neutralized their error and means I should give positive feedback, but if I were a seller and mixed up a buyer's order I would expedite the replacement order, and it doesn't appear that happened.  I'm not feeling that "positive" about it, and I don't feel negative about it either... is that a reasonable basis for neutral feedback?  I'm generally not the kind of person that writes complaints to companies or "asks for the manager", etc. a bit more passive and non-confrontational.

[gmpirate]

I'd look at it this way.  It's not a highly profitable business where absorbing expedited shipping is easily done.  He's already given you free parts, paying for additional shipping and sorting for a whole new order again.  He may also be doing this twice if two orders were mixed up.  He made your order right in a reasonable amount of time.  Things happen.  For me at least, as long as a company takes care of the situation I'm ok with a mistake.  I'm not perfect, and neither are my employees.

For me to leave negative, or neutral feedback, there has to be an obvious bad attitude or sense they do not care.

[Huskers1236]

28 minutes ago, MusiKyle said:

Question on me providing feedback to a seasoned BrickLink seller with 27,245 feedback.

Ordered parts (~$25) on 12/16, coming from Pennsylvania to Iowa.  Seller page did indicate 5-10 days before shipping (I'm guessing due to holiday).  Order did take a while (no tracking provided) but eventually arrived 12/29.  Opened the box, correct packing slip, wrong parts (bunch of technic parts that I would estimate to be roughly same value as the order I placed, maybe a bit less).  Notified seller, they replied within 12 hours (responsive) and said keep parts and will send the correct ones out.  At the same time I ordered a duplicate order from someone else.  The order from someone else has already arrived, very quickly.  I still have not received the replacement order from the seasoned seller but it looks like it should arrive tomorrow (they did provide tracking this time).

Is it wrong to leave neutral feedback?  Rationale would be long initial shipping, mixed up order, and long secondary shipping.  Part of me feels like keeping the mixed up parts neutralized their error and means I should give positive feedback, but if I were a seller and mixed up a buyer's order I would expedite the replacement order, and it doesn't appear that happened.  I'm not feeling that "positive" about it, and I don't feel negative about it either... is that a reasonable basis for neutral feedback?  I'm generally not the kind of person that writes complaints to companies or "asks for the manager", etc. a bit more passive and non-confrontational.

I would personally leave no feedback.  We appear to be similar in that we won't complain too loud if in the end all was made well especially if I had no deadline to need the parts by.   A neutral wouldn't be out of question if your feedback told the whole story that you were made right but that overall the transaction wasn't necessarily "positive".  These are the times I just withhold a positive and go on about my day. 

[MusiKyle]

23 minutes ago, Huskers1236 said:

I would personally leave no feedback.

Generally, I have a rule of leaving feedback (as a seller on eBay I know how frustrating it can be to work hard to earn good comments and get nothing).  However, in this case, I like your approach.  I'll just move on.  Thanks everyone!

[Huskers1236]

3 minutes ago, MusiKyle said:

Generally, I have a rule of leaving feedback (as a seller on eBay I know how frustrating it can be to work hard to earn good comments and get nothing).  However, in this case, I like your approach.  I'll just move on.  Thanks everyone!

I hear ya.  I have messed up similarly and cringed worrying about feedback only to end up with a positive because I made the situation right by the buyer and I have received absolutely nothing after bending over backwards for a buyer to make a deadline for them or give them extra parts they needed that I happened to have in inventory but not for sale since I didn't really need them.  

[Furious_george]

Cmon Bricklinkers. 4 requests for a quote to 4 different sellers and not a single reply? If you don’t want to post to Australia , take us off your list. Not hard.

[Al Legorical]

4 minutes ago, Furious_george said:

Cmon Bricklinkers. 4 requests for a quote to 4 different sellers and not a single reply? If you don’t want to post to Australia , take us off your list. Not hard.

Don't see a request mate!

[thebrickdad]

Cmon Bricklinkers. 4 requests for a quote to 4 different sellers and not a single reply? If you don’t want to post to Australia , take us off your list. Not hard.

You need to get in touch with a quality UK based seller who ships globally. I've even got clients in the USA - go figure!